RFA hockey season comes to bitter end in Section III final

Sunday

Feb 27, 2011 at 12:01 AMFeb 27, 2011 at 7:08 AM

West Genesee’s Wildcats skated off with a 2-1 victory over Rome Free Academy and a fourth straight section title, leaving the Black Knights and their orange and black faithful left to ponder what might have been.

Ron Moshier

All Rome Free Academy hockey coach Greg Cuthbertson could do was shake his head.

And he wasn’t the only one in disbelief.

Watching reigning state champion West Genesee convert two RFA penalties into a pair of power-play goals just a minute apart – including the game-winner with 2:08 left – was bad enough.

Even worse was the disputed “no goal” ruling with 42.4 seconds remaining, on a shot by RFA’s T.J. Reilley that most likely would have sent Saturday’s Section III Division I championship game into overtime.

Instead, West Genesee’s Wildcats skated off with a 2-1 victory and a fourth straight section title, leaving the Black Knights and their orange and black faithful left to ponder what might have been.

For an RFA team that had won 13 straight and had not lost since Dec. 11 – a 20-game unbeaten streak that included a 3-3 overtime tie at West Genesee – it was a very bitter end to a season that was supposed to end with the Black Knights lifting that Section III championship banner.

“I’ve got 28 kids crying their eyes out in that locker room,” Cuthbertson said, the coach trying his best to explain the official’s ruling that West Genesee goalie Jake Pelton had stopped the puck long enough to warrant a whistle, erasing what the Black Knights and more than half the Aud crowd thought was the tying goal in the final minute.

“I was told (by the official), ‘He was in the process of covering the puck and I was in the process of blowing the whistle.’ I’ve never heard of such a thing. It’s either covered or it’s not. It’s not a process.”

Cuthbertson didn’t believe the ensuing faceoff should be moved outside the zone, either. The Black Knights (18-3-2) lost that argument, too, and a game they were winning – thanks to Anthony D’Urso’s goaltending and freshman Seth McCormick’s second-period goal – until West Genesee’s Shawn Lynch tied it with a 5-on-3 power-play goal with 3:08 left.

Sixty seconds later, John Sabert’s power-play goal gave the state-ranked Wildcats (19-2-2) the lead – as it turned out – for good.

“I really didn’t understand it,” RFA senior captain Max Bartell said of the controversial ruling in the final minute. “It was definitely a quick whistle. … It’s not the refs who play the game, though. It’s our game. We play.

“Those penalties definitely hurt us, but we could’ve worked our way out of it. Tony (D’Urso) was outstanding. He kept us in it. There’s no reason for him to hang his head.”

D’Urso, an RFA junior, finished with 28 saves, 22 in the first two periods.

“He was awesome,” West Genesee coach Frank Colabufo said. “That’s the best I’ve seen him play. We were playing in Rome’s end and we were getting chances, we just had to get on the right side of the bounce. We had some flurries and at some point, you’re going to get lucky.”

McCormick’s fifth goal of the season, on assists from Kyle Williams and Mike Pekarski, gave RFA its 1-0 lead 4:44 into a second period otherwise dominated by the Wildcats. They outshot RFA 11-2 in that period and their late third-period heroics reminded many of West Genesee’s miraculous comeback in last year’s state semifinal at the Aud, when the Wildcats turned a 3-1 deficit with 69 seconds left in regulation into a 4-3 overtime win over Suffern.

This time, they capitalized on two late power-play opportunities, including a 5-on-3 chance Colabufo considered a must.

“That was it. That was the game,” he said. “That was an opportunity we had to bury.”

Pelton, whose parents Paul Pelton and Diane (Fulmer) are RFA graduates, finished with 15 saves for the Wildcats. He was “a little bit worried” when the Black Knights poked the puck away from him in the final frantic minute.

“But they had already blown the whistle,” Pelton said. “It hit and fell in front of me, I had it covered up and they put it in after the whistle.”

The Black Knights saw it differently.

“We thought we had ourselves a game,” said Bartell, one of eight seniors – including linemate Reilley, second on RFA’s all-time scoring list – who will be lost to graduation.

“We’re going to be back,” Cuthbertson said. “We’ve still got a good core of kids. They’ll remember this, how it feels right now, and use it as motivation. I’m proud of these kids. From where they were as freshmen to where they are now is like night and day.”